


but your eyes saved my life

by seadeepy



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur POV, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Destiny, Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, M/M, Magic Revealed, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death, it rly covers all of canon tho tbh, or yknow whatever you want to call Arthur snoozing underwater for centuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seadeepy/pseuds/seadeepy
Summary: Arthur is red, and Merlin is blue, and gold is the best of them.OR: A three-part prose-poem on colors & metaphor that I wrote like a man possessed after thinking about it for a week straight. Previously titled "you're tearing through the pages and the ink."
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 54





	1. Red

**Author's Note:**

> Title is modified from "When the Day Met the Night" by Panic! At the Disco, mostly because I felt like "all was golden in the sky when the day met the night" was a little too on-the-nose.

Red is the color of the knights' cloaks, swirling and billowing as they ride to protect Camelot's citizens. Arthur has heard these stories since childhood, so in his head it is also the color of bravery, and nobility, and honor. Red is the color of the banners that hang on every stone wall in the castle, a brilliant backdrop to the Pendragon sigil. Red is the color of most of Arthur's finery, the doublets and jackets he is carefully surrounded by and buttoned up in. The fabric smoothed down, ever so gently, by quick and clever hands that Arthur thinks about more often than he should.

(Because red is also the color of those stupid neckerchiefs that Merlin wears, a splash of crimson at his throat like he's carrying Arthur's favor in a tournament. Like a small piece of him belongs to Arthur, and it's ridiculous how fiercely Arthur adores the thought of it.)

Red is also the color of blood, a familiar sight to Arthur, staining his sword and his hands. Sometimes so much of it he thinks that no scented, candle-lit bath in the intimacy of his chambers will ever be able to scrub it all away. It's his burden, and one he bears with weary pride, but it's a color that he never, ever wanted to see painting Merlin's pale skin. His heart stopped in his chest when he turned to see Merlin facedown in the dust, and it didn't start again until the day he buried his face in Merlin's mud-covered shoulder and brought him safely home to the castle.

Arthur has spent his whole life surrounded by red, and he thinks it would surprise most people to find out that his favorite color, without a doubt, is actually blue.


	2. Blue

After all the violence and the misery, after staggering under the weight of an entire kingdom, blue is the color waiting for Arthur at the end of the day. Blue is the color of the threadbare tunics that Merlin stubbornly refuses to exchange for anything nicer, even when Arthur reminds him he is manservant to the king now and could easily afford an upgrade. Blue is the color Arthur sees out of the corner of his eye, shadowing his every footstep. At his side, wherever he goes, ready to follow him into danger and disaster without a second of hesitation.

(If Arthur could put words to his feelings, he might find a way to describe how much he relies on his manservant. How in his darkest moments, Merlin's mysterious and unshakeable faith in him is the only weapon he has to fight back despair. But he has always found actions easier, so he punches and shoves and mocks and hopes Merlin can understand this the way he understands everything else that Arthur is.)

Arthur simply can't ignore the fact that Merlin's eyes are blue as sapphires, blue as the sea. Merlin's ears are too large and stick out from his head like jug handles, and his haircut is uneven and unflattering. He's clumsier than a lamed deer and twice as skittish, and yet when he meets Arthur's gaze, Arthur can't help the way his mouth goes dry. He has been stared at his entire life, but nobody looks at him the way Merlin looks at him. Blue is the color of faith and hope and a special kind of adoration that Arthur barely deserves, not even at his most brave and noble.

Blue is the color of the light that led him towards freedom in a dark cave, only a few weeks after Merlin came into his life. Much later, he will think that he should have known, if only from the sense of peace the glowing orb brought with it. Even in those early days, when he could barely admit to himself that Merlin's death would wreck him in ways he was not prepared for, he entrusted his safety to magic. To Merlin's magic, and maybe some part of him heard a dying boy's feverish whispers from miles away and understood. Maybe part of him always knew.

Blue is the color of the misty morning when Merlin cradles him by the lake of Avalon and Arthur tries to convince his idiot manservant to let go. Blue is the color of Merlin's shirt and Merlin's eyes and Merlin, Merlin all around him, holding him as the last of his life force flickers and fades. Arthur could tell him, now at the end of all things, those three words he never found the courage for. But it seems more important, somehow, to tell his servant — his friend — his sorcerer — his other half — that Arthur finally comprehends the unimaginable sacrifices Merlin has made for his king. The two words on Arthur's lips as he slips away are as inadequate as they are essential. In this moment, there is no one he would rather have with him.


	3. Gold

Gold is the color of Arthur's world shattering around him. Gold is the color of ten years of deceit and betrayal. Gold is the color of terrifying truth crackling in fiery sparks, a secret revealed only when it will no longer make a whit of difference. Gold is the color of a stranger's eyes, but the hands that caress him are as familiar to Arthur as his own, and he doesn't know what to believe anymore.

Gold is the color of a dragon he never defeated, of so many lies that he will never be able to untangle them before the death he can feel tearing its inexorable path towards his heart. Gold is the color of his crown, and the sigil of Camelot, and maybe it's his trust in Guinevere but it all means nothing now as a man he never truly knew tries to move heaven and earth to save him.

(When he was younger, Arthur's nursemaids told him his hair was like spun gold. That any princess would be lucky to marry a man as handsome as him, just as any father would be proud to have such a strong and courageous son. Arthur wishes he didn't know what Uther thinks of him as king, with a blacksmith's daughter as his queen and a bumbling country boy as his soulmate, and no princesses as far as the eye can see.)

Gold is the color of magic, and if Merlin has magic (if Merlin _is_ magic) then Arthur can only watch as his beliefs and prejudices crumble to dust. In those two days after Camlann, he sees a Merlin he only caught glimpses of before. A Merlin who moves with confidence and self-assurance, who blasts Saxons backwards without a single word and lights a fire with only a glance. Arthur realizes that the manservant he always thought of as fragile is anything but, braver than anyone ever gave him credit for and wiser than anyone ever knew. And when the gold fades from Merlin's irises, he is there by Arthur's side where he's always been, fingers brushing along Arthur's jawline and tear-filled eyes the same impossible blue.

Arthur is red, and Merlin is blue, and when the two of them come together they make gold. Gold is the best of them, and gold is a promise. Arthur slips beneath the surface of the lake, Excalibur in his grasp, knowing all this grief will pass away. Arthur sleeps, knowing that Merlin will be waiting for him when he awakens. And the destiny the two of them will write together gleams golden.

**Author's Note:**

> My first time writing for this fandom, and I still haven't written much fanfic at all, so please be kind.... Comments are loved and appreciated <3


End file.
